1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an antislip underlay for floor coverings, particularly intended to prevent the deformation of rugs, e.g. load-bearing rugs laid over carpets, and also relates to rugs or carpets having such an underlay.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known that when rugs are laid on certain floor surfaces, for example carpets, marble floors, tiles, waxed parquet floors, the rugs tend to slip when trodden on and to crease or roll up, which not only damages them but may also cause falls or other accidents. When relatively heavy pieces of furniture, such as tables or occupied chairs, are placed on a rug laid on a carpet, the feet of the pieces of furniture transmit to the rug concentrated forces which limit the displaceability of the rug in relation to the carpet. When subjected to intermittent stresses, a rug tends to be displaced on the carpet in the direction in which the pile of the latter lies down when crushed, thus giving rise to slow creeping of the rug. These two effects have the consequence that a load-bearing rug which has been walked on or trodden on has bulges or undulations which have a very disadvantageous effect both from the aesthetic point of view and from the point of view of wear.
It has already been proposed to obviate these disadvantages by sewing the rug to the carpet, but this has many other disadvantages.
In order to prevent the deformation of load-bearing rugs laid on a carpet, it is also known to place between the rug and the carpet a relatively rigid sheet of material (for example of cardboard) whose two faces are rough, or of which one face is smooth while the other is rough.
It is known to have an underlay as an integral part of and permanently bonded to, a carpet; see for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,441,464 which describes a complex carpet structure formed in a multiplicity of steps from five components. The necessity of having the topside of the underlay able to cooperatively interact with the underneath of the carpet does not arise, since they are heat bonded to each other.
It is also known to have laminates of fibrous materials and resilient material as underlay (e.g. UK patent specifications Nos. 886,042 and 1,248,582) in which the fibrous material has been employed for strengthening the laminate. The fibre is needled to the cellular material so that fibres enter or pass through the cellular material.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,686,046 describes a carpet which in fact has a structure similar to that of the underlays described in the above mentioned U.K. patents.
French patent specification No. 1,262,737 describes a process of making a fabric (not a carpet) by needling a body of fibres into a cellular layer so that fibres project through the layer, and then needling these projecting fibres from the other side of the composite. A three-layer structure is produced with the cellular layer in the middle.